“Yes,” he said after a moment. “I do have a personnel update for you.”
“Good,” the voice said-another response which raised Merrit’s eyebrows afresh. “Please understand that no discourtesy is intended, Captain, but the security of this installation requires that no unattested data be input to the master computer system. I therefore request that you enter your data into the secondary terminal beside the door.”
“Ah, of course.”
Merrit reached very cautiously into his tunic to extract a data chip folio, then turned-equally slowly and carefully-to the indicated console. The power rifle tracked him with a soft, unnerving hum, and his palms were damp as he extracted a chip, fed it into the proper slot, and pressed the key. Then he stepped back and put his hands into his pockets, and a small, wry smile touched his lips as he recognized his own instinctive effort to look as nonthreatening as possible.
* * *
It seems improper to threaten one who may be my new Commander, yet I am a valuable unit of the Line, and it is my overriding responsibility to prevent any unauthorized personnel from gaining access to my Command Center. Surely Captain Merrit, if he is, indeed, my new Commander, will understand and appreciate my caution.
The chip carries the proper identifiers and file headers, and I lower my first stage security fence to scan the data. The chip contains only 36.95 terabytes of information, and I complete my scan in 1.00175 seconds.
I am grieved to discover that my original Commander’s file has not been properly maintained, yet the dearth of information upon her confirms her own belief that Sector HQ had “forgotten where they put me” long before her death. It is not proper for a member of the Dinochrome Brigade to be denied her place in its proud history, yet further perusal of the file reveals that the original information on my deployment was lost almost in its entirety. Fortunately, my own memory banks contain full information on both her earlier career and her actions on Santa Cruz, and I resolve to request the upload of that data at the earliest possible moment.
In addition to complete SitRep updates on the entire sector, the new data also contains the record of Captain Merrit, and I am impressed. The captain is a warrior. His list of decorations is headed by the Grand Solar Cross, which my records indicate is a posthumous award in 96.35 percent of all cases. In addition, he has received the Concordiat Banner, the Cross of Valor with two clusters, six planetary government awards for heroism which I do not recognize, three wound stripes, and no fewer than eleven campaign medals.
Yet I also discover certain disturbing facts in his personnel package. Specifically, Captain Merrit has been court-martialled, officially reprimanded, and reduced in rank from the permanent grade of major (acting grade of brigadier) to permanent grade of captain for striking a superior officer. I am astonished that he was not dishonorably discharged for such an act, yet 0.0046 seconds of consideration suggest that his previous exemplary record may explain the fact that he was not.
I complete my preliminary study of the data and reactivate the Control Center speaker.
“Thank you, Sir,” the soprano voice said, and Merrit breathed a sigh of relief as the power rifle politely deflected itself from its rock-steady bead on his head. The red warning light below it didn’t go out, nor did the weapon retract into its housing, but he recognized tentative acceptance in its change of aim. Of course, none of that explained how such an early mark of Bolo could be doing all this. It should either have activated and obliterated him upon arrival or waited passively for him to activate it. This controlled, self-directed response was totally outside the parameters for a Mark XXIII.
“Query: Have you been assigned as my Commander?” the soprano voice asked, and he nodded.
“I have.”
“Identifier command phrase required.”
“Leonidas,” Merrit replied, and held his breath, then “Unit Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five NKE of the Line awaiting orders, Commander,” the voice said calmly, and the red light on the power rifle went out at last.
4
The depot’s main vehicle chamber was a vast, dim cavern, yet for all its size and cool, gently circulating air, Merrit felt almost claustrophobic as he stared up at the first Bolo Mark XXIII he’d ever seen. He’d studied the readouts on the model in preparation for this assignment, but aside from a handful buried in the reserve forces of smaller sectors, the Mark XXIII had been withdrawn from service thirty years before. None of which made the huge war machine any less impressive.
The Mark XXIV and XXV, the only Bolos he’d ever served with, were both at least a thousand tons lighter than this. They were only marginally less heavily armed, yet the molecular circuitry and smaller, more efficient power plants which had come in with the Mark XXIV allowed more firepower to be packed into a less massive hull. But Bolo XXIII/B-0075-NKE was far older than they, and measured almost seventy-five meters from its clifflike prow to the bulbous housings of its stern anti-personnel clusters. Its interleaved bogie wheels were five meters in diameter, and the tops of the massive, back-to-back turrets for its twin eighty-centimeter Hellbores towered thirty meters above the fused ceramacrete of the chamber floor.
It was immaculate, like some perfectly preserved memorial from a lost era. The hexagonal scales of its multilayered ceramic antiplasma armor appliques were the mottled green and brown of standard jungle camouflage, though Merrit had always questioned the practicality of applying visual camouflage to fifteen thousand tons of mobile armor and weaponry.
He walked slowly around the huge fighting machine, noting the closed ports for its lateral infinite repeater batteries and thirty-centimeter mortars, the high-speed, multibarrel slug throwers and laser clusters of its close-in anti-missile defenses, and the knifelike blades of its phased radar arrays. Optical pickups swiveled to watch him as he circled it, and he smiled-then stopped dead.
He stepped closer, brow furrowing in perplexity, but the incongruity didn’t go away. According to the readouts he’d studied, the Mark XXIII had nine infinite repeaters in each lateral battery, and so did XXIII/B-0075- NKE. But there was an extra six or seven meters of hull between InfRpt Three and Four. For that matter, the Bolo’s aft track system had three extra bogies, which suggested that it was at least ten or twelve meters longer than it was supposed to be.
He reached out for a handhold and climbed up the hull-mounted rings to the carapace of the missile deck between the twin Hellbore turrets. He paced it off, placing his feet carefully between the slablike armored hatch covers of the vertical launch missile system, then stopped and scratched his head with a grimace. No doubt about it; XXIII/B-0075-NKE was a good fifteen percent longer than any Mark XXIII should have been. Someone had grafted an extra eleven meters into her hull just forward of her VLS.
“Zero-Zero-Seven-Five?”
“Yes, Commander?” The politely interested soprano voice still seemed totally inappropriate coming from a Bolo, but Merrit had other things to wonder about at the moment.
“Tell me, Zero-Zero-” he began, then paused. “Excuse me. Central has no record of what Major Stavrakas called you, Zero-Zero-Seven-Five.”
“I am called ‘Nike,’ Commander.”
“‘Nike,’” Merrit murmured. “Goddess of victory. An appropriate name for a Bolo, Nike.”
“Thank you, Commander. I have always liked it myself, and I am pleased you approve.”
Merrit’s eyebrows rose afresh at the unprompted, very human-sounding remark. A Mark XXIII should have been capable only of previously stored courtesies (outside Battle Reflex Mode, at least), yet he was beginning to suspect what lay behind those responses. It wasn’t possible, of course, but still “Tell me, Nike, what exact mark of Bolo are you?” he asked.
“I am a Bolo Invincibilis, Mark XXIII, Model B (Experimental), Commander,” the soprano voice replied.
